Month: May 2016

So this first part of the review will include some photos and first impressions. I got this copy from B&H about a week ago and it arrived safe and sound. B&H is one of my favorite sources for photographic equipment. They’re efficient and professional. They also seem to get everything first in the US. Anyway I went out and took some landscape and architectural shots.

Voigtlander 10mm e-mount Round building

Voigtlander 10mm e-mount Clock Tower front entrance

Voigtlander 10mm e-mount Clock Tower vertical angle

Voigtlander 10mm e-mount Reservoir

After that I had a little fun pointing this thing out of the horizontal and enjoying the fun-house mirror effect.

Wide is an understatement. I have several pictures of my feet in hand held shots. A monopod helps to eliminate this interesting problem.

A 10mm perspective means you really have to keep the camera in the horizontal if you don’t want some really tilted straight lines.

If you really enjoy wide angle lenses this thing is a blast.

While this lens is quite sharp in the center and good in the corners it is extremely hard to focus by eye even relatively close objects. I say this even when using the magnified view. Everything is so small in the viewfinder. Luckily for most distances the hard stop at infinity is the only setting you need. Almost everything is in focus (except your feet).

So I have been parodying the rise of Trump for the last few months and no one who has read these posts would accuse me of being subtle. I use a sledgehammer rather than a sculptor’s chisel on my creations. But comparing the reality to the art (such as it is) isn’t really much of a contrast. Trying to exaggerate the words and deeds of Trump and Clinton and Sanders is a frustrating exercise. Every time I have one of them say something absurd in my joke, in reality he comes back the next day with something even more outrageous.

And just as amazing is the reactions of the world to these bomb shells. The opposition shrieks and the home team declares them gospel. When Trump joked that he could shoot someone in the street and his numbers would still go up, he wasn’t exaggerating by much.

Let’s talk about this.

Why are we where we are?

Because we’re out of time.

The regular people have been waiting for a raise since 1989. And they’ve been waiting for someone to care about their problems. In fact they’re waiting for someone to even notice that they’re in desperate shape. For the last 25 years they’ve been told that they were gonna reap the reward that came with winning the Cold War and making the world safe for capitalism. Instead the Bushes and the Clintons gave their jobs to the Chinese and the Mexicans and put the Cold War peace dividend in the stock market for the rich. And now they have no jobs and their kids have no jobs and they’re being told that they’re no longer needed by the Democrats because they’ve been replaced by immigrants.

So why aren’t they flocking to the Establishment Republican candidates?

Because they only talk about balancing the budget and lowering taxes and reforming entitlements.

What the hell do any of those things mean if you don’t have a job?

So guess who is talking about jobs? Trump and Sanders. The two craziest bastards to ever run for the job of POTUS are the only ones in a field of over twenty who remembered that you can’t have life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness if you don’t have a job. When a ship is sinking a drowning man wants a life preserver not a blueprint for a new sturdier hull design.

So these people aren’t looking to see if Trump or Sanders has checked off all the boxes in the presidential scorecard or if he’s a good husband or if he’s even human. At this point, they’d vote for Godzilla if he were promising to get them jobs.

So whoever is elected better manufacture about twenty million jobs. Because if he doesn’t, the next time these people vote it will be for someone a lot uglier than Trump or Sanders. Or maybe they won’t wait for a vote.

DR: Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the first Clinton/Trump debate. My name is Dan Rather and I’ve come out of forced retirement to do my very best to torpedo Donald Trump. We’re here in beautiful Newark, New Jersey to help the American people come to their senses and welcome Hillary Clinton as their next leader. You may remember a few weeks ago that Senator Sanders had a nervous breakdown during his debate with Mr. Trump. Of course no one could explain the presence of LSD in both Senator Sanders’ blood and Senator Clinton’s handbag but we’ve moved on to the task at hand. The Democratic Party reconvened their leadership and drafted Senator Clinton to take over for Sanders as their nominee. So let’s welcome the candidates and get this show on the road!
DR: Good evening Senator Clinton.
HC: Hello Dan… cough cough So good to see you back… cough cough cough cough cough
DR: Good evening Mr. Trump.
DT: You still alive Rather? That’s too bad. I thought I’d get to give Stephanopolis a wedgie tonight.
DR: If I didn’t need this gig to pay off my trailer mortgage I’d walk out right now.
DT: Hey I’ll write you a check and get you on your way.
DR: Moving on. The first question is for Mr. Trump. How can the American people trust you to take care of their fiscal problems if you have personally gone bankrupt four separate times?
DT: Rather, that just shows how ignorant you are about the realities of modern finance. In each case I used the law to re-align my businesses to thrive in the ultra-competitive environment of today’s economy. I’m sure you’re too stupid to understand this but to a real businessman this would be apparent.
HC: Businessperson, not businessman. cough cough cough cough cough
DT: What?
HC: I corrected your gender exclusive choice of words…cough cough. We’re in the 21st century. Deal with…cough cough cough cough cough…it!
DT: Are you serious? You’re gonna pull the woman card for that? Aren’t you afraid that if you waste it on every male pronoun and stereotype that it’ll be all used up when you really need it? Like when I call you a shreiking fat hag and tell you to shut the hell up.
HC: How dare… cough cough… you try to… cough cough cough… silence me… Cough cough cough… I’m a strong…cough cough cough cough… woman and I can… cough cough cough cough… put you in your… cough cough cough cough cough… place anytime.
DT: Yeah? Well the nineties called and they want your feminism back.
HC: Oh yeah,… cough cough… well the… cough cough cough… jerk store… cough cough cough… called… cough cough cough cough… and they’re out of… cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough
DT: What the hell is wrong with you? Hey Rather, this old bag sounds like she’s dying of tuberculosis. Unless you can put her in a germ proof bubble I’m getting the hell out of this death trap.
HC: Run away… cough cough cough cough cough… you big… cough cough cough cough cough… coward… cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough.
DT: That’s it. I’m outta here. Good luck Rather. Hope you make it. So long Consumptive Clinton.
DR: And that’s the rest of the story here in Newark tonight. I’m Dan Rather and this is not the evening news.

So it’s late and I’m going to bed but it’s worth reviewing some of the headlines.

CBS; “Donald Trump, Candidate of Change.”

Washington Post; “Even Supporters Agree: Clinton Has Weaknesses as a Candidate. What Can She Do?”

NY Times; “Social Conservatives, However Reluctant, Are Warming to the Idea of Trump.” and “Little Is Off Limits as Donald Trump Plans Attacks on Hillary Clinton’s Character.”

And these are Trump’s Nemeses and Hillary’s Guardian Angels.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas every where I go. I think the reality is starting to infect the progressives that they’ve hitched their star to a dead horse (nag?). My greatest wish is that the next five months are excruciating for them. And it wouldn’t hurt if Trump spends some of that time actually figuring out what in God’s Name he’s going to do once he has this tiger by the tail. After all, audacity may get him elected but after that people are gonna want action and results. Otherwise the mob will works its way around to him. Wouldn’t hurt him to actually start calling up the CEOs of the Fortune 500 and see if they can hire a few million new rust belt republicans at tax break prices. That would go a long way to making The Donald look a little less like Ronald McDonald and a little more like Ronald Reagan.

In this strangest of election years, it is hard to know exactly what the smartest or the safest or the best plan is. One of the strangest things is how wrong everybody has been about everything. The wise men on the left and the right were completely blind-sided by both Trump and Sanders. And in what alternate universe is Donald Trump the champion of the forgotten working class man?

But after the fact, some things become almost obvious and maybe we can start piecing together what the hell is going on.

Facts:

1) Donald Trump figured out that both the Democrats and the Republicans had written off the votes and the interests of working class white people. The Democrats didn’t want them because they didn’t share the new values and replaced them with professional class white people and immigrants. The Republicans claimed they wanted their votes but stopped attracting them by ignoring their plight. Both sides were complicit in the destruction of the working class by exporting all the good manufacturing jobs abroad through global free trade initiatives and importing virtually limitless numbers of immigrants to undercut them on any jobs that were left.

2) Nobody else but Trump was willing to speak plainly enough about how to address these problems:
a) Stop further illegal immigration.
b) Deport the current illegals.
c) Institute a trade policy that puts American workers before global capitalism.

3) Trump energized these working class voters to propel him to the Republican Presidential Nominee.

4) Trump either is or acts as if he were some crazy combination of P T Barnum and Caligula. His rhetoric is completely unconnected to truth or even reality. He literally will not hesitate to say whatever he thinks will convince people.

5) He probably has the best chance of any of the 2016 crop of republican presidential candidates of beating Hillary Clinton in the general election. I’d say his odds are better than 50%.

6) No one has any idea what he will do if he gets elected. It’s a straight up mystery.

Conclusions:

1) Anyone who doesn’t want America to become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Global Corporate New World Order owes Donald Trump a debt of gratitude. He single-handedly slew the politically correct gatekeepers who silenced all attempts at questioning illegal immigration or outsourcing American jobs. He demonstrated how you talk to the media scolds; confidently. He hit back and the people loved it.

2) If we don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president then we had better back up Trump to the hilt.

3) The general election is going to be like a fireworks display launched from a roller coaster. I fully expect that the campaign ads and debates will include laughter, tears, lies, insults, threats, physical confrontation, nudity and several of the seven words you formerly couldn’t say on tv. My greatest hope is that during a debate Hillary will become incoherent and start barking like a dog.

4) Trump proves that a strong leader isn’t necessarily a nice guy. The man acts as if he thinks we’re idiots. He is boorish, self-centered and annoying. He is inconsistent, petty and vindictive.
But he saw how we were being manipulated. And he wasn’t afraid to say unpleasant truths.

5) The rest of the Republican field proves that when the ship is sinking you don’t want a social worker or a debate team. You want someone with a loud voice and a clear plan.

5) I hope that the rank and file of the republican party now realize that the elites of both parties are not our friends. They want to surrender this country to the hive. Their goal is an international corporate feudalism. Guess who the serfs are gonna be. Hint: It won’t be the Bushes and the Clintons.

Predictions:

Prediction is a perilous pursuit but here goes.

1) I predict Trump will win the presidency and both pleasantly surprise and sorely disappoint conservatives.

2) With Melania as the First Lady, I predict the millenials will be inspired to abandon metrosexual hipsterism for the pursuit of old fashioned binary cis-heterosexuality and sterotypical gender roles in the home and workplace.

3) I predict that failing to be added to Mount Rushmore, The Donald will build his own personal monument to himself which will be mockingly referred to as Mount Trumpmore. Upon hearing the nickname his only comment will be “That’s what she said.”

4) I predict that Mitt Romney’s dog will write a tell-all book about that time he was forced to ride on the roof of the family car. Mitt will then be taken hostage by PETA and the Animal Liberation Front and subsequently eaten.

5) During the Inauguration ceremony, I predict Joe Biden will attempt to stand behind Melania’s chair and rub her shoulders but he will accidentally fall off the edge of the platform. The event will go unnoticed and Joe will remain pinned under the stands until later in the week when he will escape, wander off and begin a nomadic existence in various D.C homeless shelter where the female inhabitants will nickname him “The Shoulder Holder.”

Greetings all you folks out in the vast right-wing conspiracy and even you denizens of the various substrata of the American Dream.

Well the unthinkable has happened and The Donald is the presumptive nominee. The screaming can be heard all the way to low earth-orbit and the usual suspects have declared it the sign of the coming apocalypse and the beginning of the end of the Republican party, conservatism, the American Republic and all multicellular life.

The reason for this consternation is Trump’s character. Hillary has declared him a loose cannon. “Everyone” knows that he’s dangerous and unreliable. Actual pundits on both ends of the political spectrum have declared that any result would be better than allowing Trump to win. Friends of mine have tried to convince me that it’s my duty to vote against him or at least abstain from voting altogether. As proof of this they ask ominously “Do you know what he might do if he wins?” They say this as though voting for him without knowing what he might do is tantamount to handing a loaded pistol to a hopped up chimpanzee. “Do you know what he might do if he wins?”

Of course the short answer is, “Damned if I know.”

And that’s the problem. Uncertainty about who he is and what he’ll do has fueled endless hand-wringing. And reaction to the outlandish and scurrilous statements that he has used against democrats and republicans alike during the campaign so far has led to angry statements from many thoughtful people about voting third party or not voting at all, as a protest.

Now, being a leading internet pundit, I have the moral responsibility to reveal the deep truth of the situation and thereby clarify the path forward for everyone else. What will Trump do if he wins?

Ready? OK.

Damned if I know.

So how do I know whether to vote for him or not? Well it occurs to me that the last two Presidents I voted for who were elected (namely George Bushes I and II) told me they would govern as conservatives. GHWB said he’d be the extension of Reagan’s terms in office. And GWB said he was a conservative. Well that wasn’t really the case. In fact I had no idea that either of them would disappoint the conservative voters who got them elected. So not knowing what a candidate is going to do once he’s in office is not really that unusual a situation to be in.

So here we are in 2016 and the RNC sends out JEB! and says he’s a conservative and here we go again. Trump threw a monkey-wrench into the works and eliminated JEB!. For that alone he should get a medal or his face on the twenty dollar bill. He also eliminated candidates who actually might be conservatives. Well that’s too bad. But that’s where we are now. The only question left is should I vote for him? Well, let’s try logic.

Analysis:
Choices 1, 2 & 3 produce the same result, the end of the American Republic (such as it is).
Choice 4 is what is technically known as a “crap shoot.” Let’s be pessimistic and say there’s a 75% chance that the outcome will be as bad or worse than Hillary. So pessimistically, there’s a one in four (25%) chance that the outcome will be better.

In that case common sense tells you to go with this choice. Now someone can say that instead of a 25% chance it’s really 10% or 5%. Fine. Let’s say it’s 1%. That still means you have one chance in a hundred of getting a good result. You might say that the difference between 1% and 0% is negligible. You would be wrong. The difference between 1% and 0% is infinite. Because anything is infinitely more than nothing. Basically it’s the difference between hope and despair. Let’s say you’re in a burning high rise building and the only way to escape is to run across the roof as fast as you can and jump for another building that’s so far away that you don’t know if you can reach it.